Ask a librarian, Collection spotlights, Our stories:
It may be hard to believe today, but the humble pigeon played a heroic role as messenger in World War I, braving heavy artillery fire and poisonous gas to deliver messages between the front line and headquarters.
Ask a librarian, Collection spotlights, Victorian history:
In 1942, amidst fears of aerial enemy attack, Melbourne’s homefront was in the grip of brownout. These were tumultuous times, and the city hummed with wartime preparations, and thousands of American service personnel. At the same time, a killer stalked in the shadows.
Read an extract from a talk by war correspondent and author Jill Jolliffe on the reporting of World War I and, in particular, the work of official historian C.E.W. Bean.
From enlistment to conscription, to laments for the lost to our duty to England, war poetry spans all the hardship and reasoning of battle.
Collection spotlights, Such was life, War:
In 1916, Corporal Thomas O’Halloran sent dozens of embroidered souvenir postcards from the front lines in France to his father, wife and three children back home in Castlemaine.
Over 70 Victorian newspapers covering 1914 to 1918 are now freely available on Trove, the digitised Australian newspapers website. These titles have been digitised to support the commemoration of the… Read More ›
Colour patches were worn on Australian soldiers’ uniforms to show which unit they belonged to. For men in the infantry battalions, the colour on the upper part of their patch… Read More ›
On 28 October 1916 the first of two controversial conscription referendums was held in Australia. Military training for men between 18 and 60 had been compulsory since 1911, but the… Read More ›
The published collections of the State Library of Victoria contain a variety of portrayals of the war experience from the horror of war to heroic accounts. Most modern histories of World… Read More ›
Are you interested in social justice or human rights? Are you keen to learn how people with disability stood up for their rights? If so, come on a journey into the online database Disability in the modern world: History of a social movement.
